


Storytellers

by fangasmic



Series: The Ballad of Cold Oak [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangasmic/pseuds/fangasmic
Summary: Essie grows up quick.





	Storytellers

Essie grows up quick. She’s only three when her mama dies, four days after little Lial is born, but she takes it upon herself to look out for him. Her pa hires a wet nurse from town, pretty lady with dark hair by the name of Jody, and Essie watches her like a hawk at every feeding. One more'n one occasion, Essie scolds the older woman about not holding her baby’s head up proper, though it loses some weight coming from a three year old with a childish lisp.

By the time she’s five, Lial’s her whole world. She goes to the town school with Raum and the other children and learns everything she can so that she can make sure Lial grows up smart. Raum and Leth can teach him to be strong, because her pa says they’re both strappin’ young lads, but Essie’s the one that’ll make sure his brain’s just as good as his fists.

Her older brothers are amused by the way Essie buts in on Jody, kept on as a cook and a nanny for Lial even after he’s weened, while she cooks. Essie constantly corrects her and Jody takes it all with a smile. It makes her pa look fiercely sad, though, and Essie doesn’t have it in her heart to ask him why.

Essie helps Jody cook and clean, learning how to keep house and keep track of everything. She grows into a smart, serious miniature woman who can handle most of the running of a ranch on her own. It’s no small achievement for a ten year old, ‘least according to Jody it’s not.

She does have her moments, though, when she’s nothing more than a little girl. They’re centered around her pa, mostly. Sometimes he’ll pick her up and swing her around, making her squeal with delight and laugh like the child she is. Others he’ll tug at her braid with a smile and call her his little dreamer. Her favorite times are after she’s helped Jody put Lial to bed, or done it completely on her own, when her pa pulls her up to sit with him in his rocking chair and tells her stories about princesses and knights, pirates and scoundrels, and places that are far away and beautiful. Essie hopes that one day she’ll get to see them, places like Italy and Ireland and France.

That’s how they’re most alike, her and her pa. They love to tell stories. Essie makes up stories for Lial at bed time and sometimes her pa comes to listen. Sometimes he helps tell them, too. Essie thinks she might like those best of all.

Everything changes the day he goes out for supplies, waving to Raum on his way. He’s promised Essie a new book of paper and some ink so that she can write her stories down. She remembers them all, but it delights her so to think that she’ll have them to share for the rest of her life.

He doesn’t come back.

They wait, all four of them, with Jody watching over them. Two days pass, then three, then five, without word. Finally, on the seventh day, Leth thanks Jody for staying with them and asks to see his father’s books.

That’s the day all of Essie’s stories die.

Lial stops asking for them when Essie’s face goes blank at the request. They have to let Jody go and, at eleven, Essie becomes the woman of the house.

She doesn’t see much point in stories when real life has no such thing as 'happily ever after’.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from tumblr (6 years old, yeesh), just to test out the mechanics of AO3 and to poke my head in this bar. A love letter to my forever cherished NRFTW family. All credit for the original characters is to the beautiful writers who brought them to life.


End file.
